When should I service my Fiat (2009 Fiat Punto Grande 1.4)?

I've had my Punto serviced at the dealer that I bought it from since new so have a full-service history with dealer's stamps.

As ever, reviewing my household finance, I looked at car maintenance costs. My Fiat Service & Warranty book says I should service every 18,000 miles and it lists service requirements at these intervals. My local dealer would love me to do it every twelve months! Since its last service in August 2015 (when I was talked into an annual service!) we have only done about seven thousand miles. It seems a bit over the top to pay for a service at this point.

I'm sure there is some truth in the statement that frequent services, done before any deadline expires (mileage or time) can only be a good thing for the condition of the car but am I throwing good money away with things being unnecessarily replaced and checked before they need to be?

There also seems to be a mystique from the dealer about what is done and what needs to be done. I get vague statements like "oh that will be a small service or a big service". When pressed as to what this means he will quickly reel off a load of things which sound like they should be checked.

What the dealer works to and what is in the Service & Warranty book don't appear to tie up much! If a whole bunch of things needs doing after 18,000 miles, why are they done at a twelve-month interval when a fraction of these miles may have been covered?

I'm sure that someone will say "why don't you do it yourself?" Good question, but at the moment, I have other priorities so can't afford the time.

Has anyone any advice? What can I specify to my dealer to do so that I know where I am with service checks?

Thanks for any replies.

What I would expect done in a yearly service, regardless of mileage:

• Oil and filter
• Air filter
• Spark plugs

That's it. Should cost no more than about £50 for parts.


Other items which need regular servicing are the belts (timing and aux) and the water pump (along with the coolant). These should be replaced together according to the book (I don't know what the interval is for the Grande, but I'd suspect 72k/7yrs whichever is soonest).


Other than that, I personally don't think anything else (eg. brakes, tyres) are a service item, and these should be replaced when needed (obviously check the condition during a service).

Thanks for the reply Eklipze3k,

What the service consisted of last year was:

Tyre tread check
External dent/scratch/glass/mirror check
Brakes/clutch/transmission operation check
Lights/wipers operational check
Fluid level check
Master cylinder/servo/fluid [visual] check
Steering/suspension visual check
Oil/filter change.
Screenwash top-up

All this cost me £134, with the VAT. There is probably nothing I couldn't have done myself but I wouldn't have got my dealer's stamp. Also, I'm not sure if you need the laptop plug in thing to re-set everything if you remove the filter?

The steering/suspension check led to another £158 worth of work to renew the front drop link dust covers and to fix movement on the drop links/anti-roll bar.

The whole show cost me £292.82 and is recorded as a "minor service" on the invoice.

[The timing/aux belt is checked at 108,000 according to the Service & Warranty book.]

Eklipze3k said:

What I would expect done in a yearly service, regardless of mileage:

• Oil and filter
• Air filter
  [*]Spark plugs
  

That's it. Should cost no more than about £50 for parts.


Other items which need regular servicing are the belts (timing and aux) and the water pump (along with the coolant). These should be replaced together according to the book (I don't know what the interval is for the Grande, but I'd suspect 72k/7yrs whichever is soonest).


Other than that, I personally don't think anything else (eg. brakes, tyres) are a service item, and these should be replaced when needed (obviously check the condition during a service).

Click to expand...

No need to replace air filter or spark plugs yearly.

RedPeril said:

Also, I'm not sure if you need the laptop plug in thing to re-set everything if you remove the filter?

Click to expand...

On the 1.4 you don't have to reset anything.

(there is only a service reset procedure which is only a service reminder and nothing more than that.)

Thanks for your reply. Interesting observation ...just oil/filter really? The cost of which a lot less than I paid for their standard minor service, which includes all of their visual checks.

The dealers like to do what they call a "manufacturer's recommendation" and the list in my Service & Warranty book is quite long!

They only list service requirements by total mileage in my book so I'm at a loss to know what they would expect to be done on an annual (and low mileage) basis to qualify for a dealer's stamp. I'm going to call them to discuss my service and I expect that they will insist on the long list of other (mainly visual, or very simple operational) checks in order to get my dealer's stamp.

From last year's service, I suspect that, had I done the checks myself, I wouldn't have picked up the fault with the drop link dust covers and fixing the movement on the drop links/anti-roll bar.

The question that I suppose I'm asking myself is, do I risk paying over the odds for them to inspect the car rather than me missing things, which might have safety or cost implications?

There's only any point in getting a Fiat dealer service if you want a complete Fiat service history.

Your car is 7 years old now and probably worth around £3000 so it's not worth spending £300 for a service (10% of the car's value) when a cheaper service does the same job at a fraction of the price.

At your mileage I would "service" the car annually. That should amount to an oil and oil filter change. Add in an air filter if those need replacing every 12,000 miles (and you do 7,000 miles). It's not a huge extra expense. If the air filter should be changed at 18,000 miles then change it every other year (you'll have done 14,000).

Plugs and all the other stuff, only wear out if you do mileage.. so they can be changed at the recommended Fiat mileage (e.g. 54,000 miles, or whatever it is, for plugs). The plug doesn't know how old it is.. the handbrake doesn't know how long it's been since it was adjusted and ball joints do their jointy thing oblivious of whether they've been there 2 months or 200 months. You can leave them for the mileage based services.

The only exception is the cam-belt since that's a) important/knackers your motor when it lets go and b) made of rubber so can perish with age, even if you don't use it. So change the cam-belt based on age (5 years?) unless you reach the mileage limit (108,000 sounds a bit optimistic.. are you sure it's not 60,000 tops?).

If you change the cam-belt, also change the water pump. Water pumps don't feature in any service schedule but when they wear out, they can throw off the cam belt or at best, require you to remove the cam-belt to replace them. So don't go to the trouble.. just change it with the cam-belt and that's that.


So.. just give the beast an oil and filter change every year but a full service (based on mileage) every other year. It sounds like your mileage is under half the service interval (7,000 pa vs 18,000 interval) so your car would still be getting serviced ahead of the scheduled service.. but an oil and filter in between.


Ralf S.

Ralf S. said:

<BIG SNIP>


So.. just give the beast an oil and filter change every year but a full service (based on mileage) every other year. It sounds like your mileage is under half the service interval (7,000 pa vs 18,000 interval) so your car would still be getting serviced ahead of the scheduled service.. but an oil and filter in between.


Ralf S.

Click to expand...

To be honest, at 7000 miles per year and modern synthetic or semi synthetic oil I'd only do the oil and filter every other year. The only exception to this is if you are in a very dusty environment or most of your journeys are so short the car does not get up to normal temperature. Even one longer journey every week would be enough to drive any moisture out of the system. At 7 years old there is no point in throwing money at a main dealer, find a local garage by recommendation. One thing on "reduced" servicing, it's even more important that normal that if something doesn't sound or feel normal, you get it checked, don't wait for it to break.


Robert G8RPI.

Thanks for the replies Ralf and g8rpi (and other Forum members)

Good to have some views on this. I'm happy to tackle an oil/filter change myself. I have one of those "lifetime" guarantee things at Kwik Fit for checking the discs/pads and the MoT will pick up any other safety issues so time to save myself a bit of cash?

The Fiat Service & Warranty book gives me some idea as to what to check or have checked at various mileages. I checked again about the timing belt in the S&W book and it gives 36k and 108k miles for this. The belt (and water pump) was changed at 36,525 miles. I've about 57k on the clock now so maybe have it changed again at 72k?

Also, I picked this up on the internet:

http://fiat-punto-cars.info/routine-maintenance-and-servicing

It doesn't seem to be attributed to anyone. Any thoughts on it?

Is there a Fiat Punto Grande workshop manual that I can download from anywhere?

Thanks again to all.

I will be back if I get stuck with things (like the engine breather hoses I tackled and the window winder mechanisms in the rear doors!)

RedPeril said:

Is there a Fiat Punto Grande workshop manual that I can download from anywhere?

Click to expand...

https://www.fiatforum.com/downloads.php?do=download&downloadid=429

RedPeril said:

Thanks for the replies Ralf and g8rpi (and other Forum members)

<SNIP>
The Fiat Service & Warranty book gives me some idea as to what to check or have checked at various mileages. I checked again about the timing belt in the S&W book and it gives 36k and 108k miles for this. The belt (and water pump) was changed at 36,525 miles. I've about 57k on the clock now so maybe have it changed again at 72k?

<SNIP>

Click to expand...

The cambelt and water pump should be changed every 5 years at the low mileage you are doing, so a few years to go

Robert G8RPI.

How to open workshop manual?

Thanks for the links to the workshop manuals.

Unfortunately, being a real dummy at these things, I can't open them! I've clicked on No. 1 and downloaded it and stored it on my PC. I have a copy of Winzip, which I understand you need to open these types (rar) of files.

Whatever, I'm doing, I can't seem to open the file! Does anyone have a step by step explanation for me?

Thanks.

Re: How to open workshop manual?

I don't think Winzip can open rar files, you need either WinRAR or jZip/7Zip will also do it.

Opening Workshop Manuals

I've kindly been sent a link to the workshop manuals but I'm finding it difficult to open them!

I've tried lots of things like buying the WinRAR file unpacking app and copying the eight files from the manual into a folder on my PC. I've clicked things in WnRAR that seem to extract the files and found files that say "start" and "set up" but I can't get the manual open on screen!

Has anyone achieved this and got a simple list of things for a computer dummy like me to follow? I feel that I'm so close but missing something!

Any help would be great!

Re: Opening Workshop Manuals

Try this - https://www.fiatforum.com/miscellan...nloading-burning-244-elearn-iso-cd-image.html

It's geared towards the Ducato elearn, but the process is the same for all of them.

Edit: Had to download it myself to double check, so yeah use WinZip, etc to extract the .iso file. Then either use Nero or similar to burn this to CD, or use a piece of software like Daemon Tools to create a virtual CD.

Hope that helps.

Opening workshop manuals

Thanks for the reply Eklipze3K.

I'm still struggling with opening the workshop manuals! I've got some unzipping software (WinRAR) and it seems to unpack them. I've just stored the unpacked stuff on my PC at the moment as I didn't see the need to create a CD?

The unpacked stuff looks promising as it has a list:

Start
Set up
ex_setup
elearn
autorun.

Stuff happens when I click setup or ex_setup in that I can select language and install but it finishes up with an error message about the create process failing. It says the "system can't find the file specified". I must be very close to opening the manual! Any ideas?

Re: Service Intervals and workshop manual

Just to wrap this one up, many thanks to all of those that replied. I'm heading down the route of doing some simple stuff myself and getting in help for the more complex stuff (like a timing belt) as it comes up.

I'd hoped to be able to use the Forum's workshop manual but it's proved impossible for me to open it. Not sure what the problem is as I'm no IT expert. Just error messaged that I don't understand. Off the the book shop for a Haines manual!